Salem Hospital Ranked Number One for Cardiac Surgery for 2007 and 2008

Salem Hospital’s continuous improvement in cardiovascular quality has led to the highest marks in the 2008 HealthGrades ratings.

In 2008, HealthGrades has rated Salem Hospital:

• Number one in Oregon for cardiac surgery for the second year in a row
• Number two in Oregon for overall cardiac services
• Number three in Oregon for coronary interventional procedures
• Five stars for coronary bypass surgery two years in a row
• Five stars for coronary interventional procedures
• Five stars for treatment of heart attacks

What does it mean to get a five-star rating?
A five-star rating indicates that the hospital has “better than expected” mortality or complication rates for that particular procedure. In other words, more people survive, and they have fewer complications than expected.

Star ratings are based on an analysis of more than 41 million Medicare hospitalization records over the years 2004 to 2006.

The records are “risk-adjusted,” meaning that hospitals that take sicker patients are compared on equal footing with other hospitals. Hospitals' data are updated annually.

The 2008 HealthGrades ratings for all hospitals nationwide are available for free on the organization’s award-winning consumer Web site, www.healthgrades.com.

More than four million people, including employees of 125 major employers and health plans, visit HealthGrades each month to access quality information about hospitals, nursing homes and physicians.

HealthGrades also provides consumers and payers with detailed assessments of hospitals’ patient-safety outcomes, based on indicators developed by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.